It’s incomplete but it show cases some of what I mean. There’s just a lot more charm in these earlier graphics. I’m fairly certain they had to consider how the different colours of ink bleed on one another.
Like take 1978 for example, this might be some kind of highlighter ink, and when the colours over lap the grid they interact in ways most overlapping geometry don’t in charting libraries (but in CSS you can get a similar effect with mix-blend-mode: multiply)
If you go to page 159 of the most recent RBA report, you’ll see otherwise clean clear charts that do a good job of communicating the relevant information (perhaps that’s all there should do from such an institution), but it’s admittedly soulless compared to the charts from previous decades
not the parent, but one thing i find charming is that a lot of them have a really good feel for line weight and inking style, and vary it interestingly in various parts of the plot. computer generated charts tend to have a much more uniform line weight.
I made this a while back never finished it, but it’s a slide show of the different styles of graphics the RBA used over time
https://x.com/Angus_KST/status/2057757395196293262/video/1?s...
It’s incomplete but it show cases some of what I mean. There’s just a lot more charm in these earlier graphics. I’m fairly certain they had to consider how the different colours of ink bleed on one another.
Like take 1978 for example, this might be some kind of highlighter ink, and when the colours over lap the grid they interact in ways most overlapping geometry don’t in charting libraries (but in CSS you can get a similar effect with mix-blend-mode: multiply)
https://www.rba.gov.au/publications/annual-reports/rba/1978/...
If you go to page 159 of the most recent RBA report, you’ll see otherwise clean clear charts that do a good job of communicating the relevant information (perhaps that’s all there should do from such an institution), but it’s admittedly soulless compared to the charts from previous decades
https://www.rba.gov.au/publications/annual-reports/rba/2025/...
not the parent, but one thing i find charming is that a lot of them have a really good feel for line weight and inking style, and vary it interestingly in various parts of the plot. computer generated charts tend to have a much more uniform line weight.